Monday, November 26, 2007

At some point, I should just shake my head and laugh at the "annoyance journalism" of Drew Sharp, "columns" in which the only purpose behind their writing is to sit back and revel in how upset he can make the targets of his attacks (and they are attacks, make no mistake about it). I guess I keep reading and posting about it in the silly hope that somebody at the Detroit Free Press will finally wake up regarding the intellectual dishonesty of his pieces (of...).

Now, that very title was solely picked to poke. Plain and simple. You can argue my response is a "homer" one since this is a Michigan blog, fair enough. Take me out of it. But Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, the ESPN crew and every other coach and pundit writing about the U-M coaching vacancy have called it one of the premiere jobs in the country.

Which is exactly why Sharp wrote his piece (of...).

Sharp can't bag on our season or our coach anymore. The season is over, the coach moved on. And the focus of the media has been on this wonderful coaching opportunity that has opened up to outsiders for the first time in 40 years. So what does he do? Take something that everybody is taking about in a positive light, tear at that, then sit back and watch the response.

And it's annoying because I always assumed the Free Press was supposed to be a step up from a "lowly" blog. Or so I thought. But I see much more honest reportage and stories coming out of the blogosphere on a daily basis.

According to Sharp's expertise, there are five principle factors in determining a program's reputation: Institutional support, quality of resources, natural recruiting base, competitive coaching salaries, historical pedigree. The only one Sharp "gives" Michigan top 10 credit for is historical pedigree.

He dings Michigan for its lack of a "natural" recruiting base which he defines as the recruiting base within a 3 hour drive of a school's campus. Never mind that teams like Michigan recruit nationally, regularly having a top 10 class.

He says Michigan has no institutional support because the school is only now adding luxury boxes to bring in "much needed" revenue. As if such suites are the measuring stick of program's "institutional support." Oh, and never mind that they increased seating capacity to 107,501 in the last 10 years or so. Or that with such a seating capacity - in the LARGEST stadium that is ALWAYS sold out - Michigan has been in no way, shape or form in dire need of such boxes. And don't bother to mention the seat licensing fees which were instituted in the last five years to bring in such revenue on a more stadium-wide basis. But hey, if Sharp mentioned all that, he might have to take a more honest look in his "reporting."

In his piece (of...), Sharp ties, blends and intertwines his Quality of Resources category into the institutional support slam, knocking Michigan for just now starting to build a new indoor practice facility. Uh, wasn't Michigan the first team in the country to even have an indoor facility? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that facility was built in the 80s. Are they supposed to build a brand new one every 10 years? It's time, now they're building one. End of story.

Finally, and most laughably, he says Michigan isn't competitive with its football coaching salary. This could be the most intellectually dishonest piece of crap in his entire piece of shit article. Lloyd Carr's salary is $1.5M a year. A ton for you and me, but not on the level of the standard $2M coaching salaries at the big programs. Yes, that's true.

But - and it's a huge "but" - what assclown fails to mention is that the reason Michigan "only" pays out $1.5 for its coach is, first and foremost, Lloyd Carr isn't a money grubbing whore. If even non-Michigan fans learned anything about the man over the course of his tenure and during his press conference last week, it's that money wasn't/isn't important to Carr in the way it is to, oh, say, I dunno, let me throw out a name...Nick Saban.

You think Carr could have left Michigan after winning the national title in '97 for a huge raise? Or used the the leverage of being the 7th winningest coach in the country during his head coaching career to constantly renegotiate like so many coaches do? Yes he could have, but no he didn't.

Furthermore, had Carr left, say, four or five years ago, guess what? The new coach's salary, if he would have come from outside the program, would be up in the level of the Stoops, Carrolls and Browns of the coaching world. Yet Sharp instead uses the class of Carr and the unique longevity of head coaches at Michigan as a "strike" against the program.

Seriously, if you're a sports editor at the Free Press, how do you print this crap with a straight face?

UPDATE: Just saw this dick article regarding Les Miles possibly coming to A2 that doesn't even constitute a column. It's all of four paragraphs long, with two of those being a sentence each. No, this "column" was written in the wake of LSU's loss to Arkansas for the sole purpose of these first two paragraphs jabs:

"If LSU loses in the SEC championship game next week, doesn't Les Miles then become the prototypical Michigan coaching candidate?

He would have lost his last two games since the job became available. Sounds like a seamless transition from the Lloyd Carr era."

Folks, what I just posted above is half the article! HALF! I say again, is this the Detroit Free Press or a blog run by a fan of some Michigan rival? Seriously.

yep, nothing like the talent found within a three hour drive of South Bend. And their winning percentage the last four years...Not quite Pulitzer quality work. The notion of grading a college program on the local highschool talent makes no sense. It is how you land not only the closest big fish, but how your brand is known nationally so you attract all the big fish.His editor should have handed him the copy back full of red circles and "wtf"s with a big F at the top.

Buckeye fan perspective here. Michigan is one of the top five jobs in the country. Period. The facilities are outstanding (I have been to the big house 3 times, as well as most of the other Big 10 facilities), the team is the winningest of all time, the fans are great and the traditions are unique and fantastic. The campus is beautiful, and the recruiting base, which to my chagrin includes much of northern Ohio, is among the best around. I don't know who Sharp is, but he is way off base on this one.

Drew Sharp is an angry black man who can't get anyone from the Michigan team to talk with him. Something happened to him that made him so angry towards the school. Someone wanting to win a Pulitzer's in investigative journalism should look into why Drew is so bitter towards his alma mater.

With that said, the Stadium is a Relic. The upgrades are SORELY needed and a decade too late. The fact that you can no longer bring in frozen marshmallows just shows you how behind the times UM officials are!

Maybe the fact that before that split national title in 1997, the last time Michigan won a national title was when dinosaurs roamed the earth is a good reason why Michigan isn't nationally elite, only regionally elite. Just a thought...

I don't see how Luxury Boxes are a measure of a good team. The Lions have them.

Michigan Stadium may be a relic but everything I've read about it seems to indicate that it is a pretty well designed relic. So it doesn't have luxury boxes, big freaking deal. It's going to have them and probably a few other changes.

As for the talent of local high schools...that's all pretty subjective isn't it? Since the high schools don't play either other. I mean the B(C)S is a perfect example of what happens when you use subjective measures for something that should be objective.

As for other support....Doesn't Michigan have one of the biggest Alumni groups out there?

Corey, as far as National Championships, MSU has done much more than Michigan in the modern era (1951, 1955, 1957, and 1966.) Other than that though, I can admit that MSU is far from where Michigan is in other some other aspects. If Michigan doesn't find the right coach, the gap will start to close.

I don't know, Katie, i'm an OSU fan and i think the article is worthless. I don't know the man personally, but it takes an idiot to deny the obvious. If UM isn't in the top 10, then i would like to see this guy's top 10. From my perspective there're only a few elite programs in each BCS conference. Here's what i'm thinking (i'm not talking about this year, but the last 10-15 years):

Whetstone,well i also said maybe PSU. I don't know, my feeling is Nebraska was elite pre-Solich (sp?) but haven't done anything lately (that includes a losing season). On the other hand, Bama is IMHO just as "elite" as Nebraska (historically speaking). So, if i have to put the Huskers in, does it make sense to leave the Tide out? I'm not sure.

But the point i was making is that IMHO UM is way higher on the list than Nebraska or 'Bama.

You can't leave Nebraska out and keep Michigan in. Both haven't done anything as of late. It's just a down period. Both programs, in my opinion, are elite and will be back. It will be interesting to see which program hits the top 5 first.

As far as giving the nod to Michigan over Nebraska, I would think that "modern era" enthusiasts would have a strong argument for Nebraska.

Penn St. is also elite, but I can't help but think they won't get back to former glory under JoePa. It's time for him to become AD.

Alabama...now that's trickier. Good history, but they've been down for awhile. I'm not sure about them. I think I'll get an opinion from an Auburn fan.

Duhbraylon17, speaking of inaneness...you're giving me a run for my money. It's nice to know you are obsessed with me. I'll note that on my résumé

WS,fine, i'll keep both UM and Nebraska in, take Bama out. I guess the only difference for me between UM and Nebraska is that since '97 the Nebraska drop-off has been steeper than that of UM. But, i guess, you're right and Nebraska was better in the '90s.

jpl,thanks for the link. With all fairness, those are the "most valuable franchises/universities". $$$ aside, you couldn't pick Bama or Tennessee over OSU. But since football is religion is the South (no matter how shitty the product on the field really is) they make/are worth more money than the Bucks.It'll be scary how much money UM will be worth after the stadium renovations.

I would think that would be a hard job: The phrases "offensive lineman" and "engineer" aren't often used in the same sentence. Therefore, it would be hard to recruit, I would think. And lots of pressure.

Rod Marinelli's weekly Monday press conference was pretty entertaining. When somebody asked about Parker's report that William Clay Ford ordered that Calvin Johnson be thrown to more, Marinelli interrupted the question with. "Lie. Lie. It's a lie. Two people talk to Mr. Ford. Me and Matt. That's a lie. Does that cover it?" Hopefully the Free Press will tire of being publicly shamed as a result of this idiot's blatherings.

You should consider adding a disclaimer to the link about not clicking it in order to minimize traffic to the column. Presumably, they run it specifically to incite Michigan fans such as ourselves, who then up their web traffic and buy papers. He's the Freep's very own Jay Mariotti.

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